Discrimination

How it is used

Sociologists distinguish prejudice (an attitude) from discrimination (an action), and individual discrimination from institutional or structural discrimination built into rules and organisations. Field experiments with matched CVs are a common way to measure it.

Example sentences

1. In the experiment, identical CVs with different names received different numbers of interview invitations, a clear sign of discrimination.

2. Institutional discrimination can continue even when no individual intends to discriminate.

Common collocations

• face discrimination
• institutional discrimination
• age discrimination
• discrimination against
• prejudice and discrimination

Related terms

• stereotypeA simplified and fixed belief about the characteristics of all members of a group, which ignores individual differences and is often negative.
• minority groupA group that has less power, status or access to resources than the dominant group in a society, often because of its ethnicity, religion, language or another shared characteristic.
• raceA way of classifying people into groups on the basis of perceived physical differences such as skin colour, which sociologists treat as a social rather than a biological category.
• stigmaA mark of disgrace attached to a characteristic, condition or identity, which leads other people to see a person as less acceptable or less normal.
• social exclusionA situation in which individuals or groups are shut out from full participation in society, such as work, education, housing, services or political life.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

• discrimination · Human Resources

More terms: Migration, Race and Ethnicity

• ethnicity
• migration
• assimilation
• multiculturalism
• diaspora